Janice Wen Ying Ma

Introduction

Janice Wen Ying Ma, a Chinese-Canadian art teacher, was permanently barred from teaching in Manitoba or at any Manitoba-accredited institution as of 14 September 2026, after a disciplinary panel concluded she engaged in “repeated boundary-crossing with a student” — inappropriate physical interaction and “emotionally intimate online messages” with a teenage girl at Clifford International School in Guangzhou, China, where Ma taught during 2024-25. The ruling, reported by the Winnipeg Free Press on 28 September 2026, followed her firing by the school in May 2025 and a public videoconference hearing — the first in Manitoba held open to the public in real time — on 21 July 2026.

Background Information

Ma is a B.C.-trained teacher who took a job at a Manitoba-accredited international school overseas just over two years before the hearing. Clifford International School in Guangzhou operates under Manitoba’s accreditation system, which means its teachers hold or seek Manitoba certification and fall under the province’s Teacher Regulation Branch disciplinary authority even though the school sits in China. Ma taught art there. In 2024-25, according to the panel’s 22-page decision, she developed the relationship with a student — identified only as “Student A” — that would end her certification: first a secret meeting captured on school security footage, then messages that continued after she was suspended.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Civil-standard findings. The panel’s conclusions are regulatory findings on a balance of probabilities, not criminal convictions. No criminal proceedings against Ma appear in the published record.

The investigation began when a colleague stumbled upon a secret meeting between Ma and the student. Security footage screened at the public hearing showed the two embracing for nearly 15 seconds before entering a secluded room shielded from cameras — and showed Ma fleeing the scene through a back exit when another adult entered the vicinity. Senior administration found the footage after the staff member reported the unusual interaction, and the school suspended Ma. She was fired in May 2025 after the investigation.

The evidence also included Instagram messages exchanged hours after Ma’s suspension — a contact the panel treated as an aggravating breach. In one, an account the evidence tied to the case wrote: “The place where we kissed could not be seen.” The teenager’s messages were exchanged with an unknown user, but the panel’s decision found Ma had told the student to delete messages and had contacted her “after being directed not to do so”. When the accounts of Ma and the student were taken at separate meetings, both conflicted with the security video.

Ma’s defence was that she was a rookie teacher who made poor judgment calls in an effort to console a teenager; she denied exchanging any romantic messages with the student or having any inappropriate “emotional connections”. The panel — chaired by public representative Gordon Schumacher, with labour relations consultant Alison Bourrier for the Manitoba School Boards Association and Winnipeg independent school principal Kevin Sterner — sided with independent teacher commissioner Noni Classen, whose case had to establish the alleged misconduct on a balance of probabilities. The decision states that barring Ma was “the only appropriate disposition” in a case involving “repeated boundary-crossing conduct”, adding: “The panel is particularly concerned by the teacher’s repeated disregard for professional boundaries before, during, and after the school’s investigation.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Winnipeg Free Press reported the ruling on 28 September 2026, noting the hearing’s own first: Ma’s case was the first Manitoba teacher discipline hearing open to the public in real time, a transparency step that put the security footage and the evidence before anyone watching. The consequence is the most severe the panel could impose: permanent cancellation of her certificate, barring her from teaching “on Manitoba soil or at a Manitoba-accredited institution” — the latter limb reaching international schools in China and elsewhere operating under Manitoba accreditation. Ma was not ordered to pay any fees.

Current Status

Ma’s certificate is cancelled as of 14 September 2026, and the bar is permanent. The published decision does not record any appeal. The ruling leaves her teaching career in the Manitoba system — in the province itself and across its accredited international schools — closed. She has not publicly responded beyond her hearing defence, which the panel rejected.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A permanent bar is the terminal regulatory outcome for a teacher: unlike a suspension, it does not lapse, and it follows the certificate across jurisdictions that recognise Manitoba credentials, including the accredited-schools network overseas where Ma had built her post-Canada career. The findings — a 15-second embrace on camera, a secluded room, messages continuing after suspension, and instructions to a student to delete evidence — mark the record as one of sustained disregard rather than a single error, which is what the panel said made permanent barring the only appropriate disposition. The case also set a transparency precedent in Manitoba as the province’s first real-time public teacher discipline hearing.

Sources

• *Winnipeg Free Press, “Teacher barred for ‘repeated boundary-crossing conduct’,” Sep 28, 2026 — source